A HARD SEASON
The first few days by Germain and Cyrène, after the death of de
Bailleul, were spent in genuine sorrow. Their thoughts were recalled to
those dear and delicious weeks at Fontainebleau, and they decided that
Germain should revisit Eaux Tranquilles and prepare it for their bridal.
Wishing to do so undisturbed by business he sent no word to his
intendant, but set out on the journey mounted on a good horse, along the
road by Bicêtre and Corbeil. It was the beginning of March, the end of a
winter so severe as to have surpassed the memory of living men. The
Seine had been frozen over from Havre to Paris for the first time since
1709; and, added to the horrors of famine arising from destruction of
the last summer's harvest by hail, the icy fields and gleaming river now
had a terrible aspect to the shivering poor; and even to him, Canadian
though he was, accustomed to think of winter as a time of merriment, for
he thought of the misery of the people.
Towards evening he was forced by a hail storm to stop at the inn of
Grelot, a hamlet which adjoined the park of Eaux Tranquilles.
In the morning he was roused by voices in the village street, and saw by
the sunlight pouring in at the window that the day was well up and the
storm over. The number of voices, though not many, seemed to him
unusual for such a somnolent place at Grelot, so that he rose, took up
his clothing, which had been dried over night by the host and thrust in
at the door at daybreak, partly dressed himself, sat down at the window
and looked out from behind the shutters.
On the opposite side of the road he saw, sitting under a spreading oak
on a bench, the persons who were talking. The long boughs of the tree
were gnarled and leafless, but they overspread most of the little
three-cornered space which constituted the village green, and the sun
upon their interlacing surfaces cheerfully suggested the coming of
spring. Three famished peasants sat on the bench. The bones protruded on
their hollow faces, and their eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. They
were all over fifty; one was much older, and leaned feebly on a cudgel.
Their dress was mean and patched; their battered sabots stuffed with
straw and wool. One was whittling with a curved knife. He was a
sabot-maker.
"It is not possible to live this way," he protested. "People will not
buy sabots nor bucket-yokes."
"They need food before sabots," remarked the old man.
"But I too must have food. Are we never to have good bread again? Three
years ago we had good bread."
"This barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour," said the
old man, trembling with weakness. "To make bread of it, my woman is
obliged to work it over several times, and each time there seems so
little left that she weeps. We must soon die."
"Yet there is always a fight for it at the wickets, when it is
distributed," said the third man.
"And one must fight to keep his share. I go to the wickets with my big
knife out," the sabot-maker added fiercely.
"And when one eats it, it gives him inflammation and pains," continued
the old man. "I have seen many years of famine, but never so little
bread, and that so hard and stinking."
"As for me I have found a secret," gravely said the third man, whose
hollow countenance displayed an unnatural pallor. "Over in the
Seigneur's park, above the little spring of water, there is a ledge of
rock. Below that ledge there lies plenty of white clay. That clay is
good to eat. You are hungry no more when you have taken breakfast of
that."
"My God! is our parish reduced to eating earth?" exclaimed the oldest of
the men. "What is to become of France? Heaven is against us."
"I came here before my children woke, because it pierces my heart to
listen to their crying," the sabot-maker said dejectedly.
"Yet everybody knows there is so much good grain in the barns of the new
Seigneur," the earth-eater said in a whining voice.
"While Monsieur the Chevalier lived none starved, at least," the old man
said, his head bowed in despair upon the top of his staff. "What is to
become of us now?"
"It is the fault of the bad people about our King," remarked the
earth-eater.
Every syllable sank into Germain's heart, for _he_ was the new Seigneur.
A loud clattering sound as of some person running rapidly up the street
arrested the conversation of the trio. A countryman, a clumsy, frowsy
fellow, in a terrible fright, stopped under Germain's window out of
breath and turned at bay on his pursuer. The pursuer, likewise out of
breath, was also clumsy, but rather from stoutness than stupidity; he
was a short man of about forty, and his dress was that of one in the
lower ranks of the law. Everybody in the place ran out of doors to see
what the race was about.
"Monsieur Pioche--I--only--want--your--vote," the Attorney panted,
closing up with his victim.
"Let me go, Master Populus," the peasant cried, clasping his hands and
falling on his knees. "Faith of God! I can swear that I have none of
that. I never saw one, I assure you, Monsieur. Search my person and see
if you find one of those things. No, Monsieur Populus, I am only a poor
little bit of a cottager, I have never broken the laws in my life. I
assure you I have no such thing on me. I never saw one, Monsieur."
"My good Pioche--_Monsieur_ Pioche, citizen of the bailiwick of
Grelot--do not go on your knees to one whose only aim is to be the
servant of our citizens."
A suspicious, defensive look was the only expression on the rustic's
face as he rose and peered furtively round to calculate his chances of
escape. A little crowd was meanwhile closing up.
"Know, sir," continued Populus, "that the King, in the plentitude of his
goodness, has learned of the misery of his people and desires to hear
their grievances and set them right. He has ordained that the grievances
of Grelot be set forth for him in due form, and I undertake, sir, to act
in this operation as the humble mouthpiece of my native place. More
particularly his Majesty decrees that the august people do declare its
will upon the formation of a constitution and other grave matters, by
appointing representatives of the Third Estate to the Assembly of the
Estates-General."
"I don't understand anything about all that."
"My dear Monsieur Pioche, that does not matter in the slightest. It is
the best of reasons why you should appoint me your representative."
"I do not understand," the rustic persisted stolidly.
"_Mon Dieu!_ Monsieur Pioche," Master Populus continued, "it is very
simple; promise me your vote. See what I can do for you. You pay the
Seigneur twenty-six livres annual feudal rent of your holding."
"No, twenty-seven."
"Well, say twenty-seven. Now I am the intendant of this new young fool
of a Seigneur, who is away all the time at Versailles. I have the sole
control. Let us strike a bargain. Give me your vote and I will quietly
let you off ten livres of rental. If I wish, I can find some reason for
reporting you at seventeen."
Pioche's eyes assumed an uncertain light of cunning and greed.
"Don't do it, Pioche," cried a one-eyed cobbler. "Notary Mule offers to
abolish all these Seigneur's rights if we elect _him_ to the
States-General."
"Shut up, you tan-smelling bow-legs!" the enraged Populus retorted at a
shout. "Who is this Mule, that he should represent the majesty of the
bailiwick of Grelot? A cur whose very name is enough to relegate him to
limbo; whose deeds are atrocities in ink, whose----"
"Nevertheless he is going to lift our dues. Master Mule is the people's
man," the cobbler returned valiantly.
"What, Mule!" cried Populus with still greater scorn. "Where has he the
power? Am I not the intendant? Is it not I who alone control the dues in
my own person? Yes, gentlemen, who will deny that I hold, so to speak,
the keys of heaven and earth in Grelot, and whom I bind shall be bound
and whom I loose shall be loosed, notwithstanding the impotent cajolery
of all the long-eared Mules in the kingdom?"
The whole population of the village were by this time gaping around him.
"What, you clapper-jawed thief," a voice thundered from behind, "you
venture to malign my name--the honourable appellation of a respectable
family! Know, sir, that I spit upon you, I strike you, I say bah to your
face!"
Maître Mule was a little round-faced man, forced by his physical
inferiority to Populus to take out his valour by word of mouth.
The two went at it with recriminations, from which Germain learnt much
of his own affairs. The noise of the pair shouting and threatening to
fight together, and the riotous cries of the crowd, "No dues!" "Notary,
give us bread!" grew at length so great that the innkeeper rushed out
exclaiming, "Peace, Messieurs, peace. I have a gentleman from Paris
sleeping upstairs. See, there is the baker's shop just open."
The word "baker" operated better than magic. The rioters rushed over to
the wicket, which was fixed in the door of the shop, and fought and
snarled with each other for their slender purchases of the bread of
famine.
Such were the daily incidents which were leading men on to revolution.